


Losing His Religion

by aspermoth



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Christianity, M/M, Religion, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspermoth/pseuds/aspermoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson had always led a Christian life. What could change that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing His Religion

Dr John Watson had always led a Christian life. Raised within the Church of England by fairly devout parents, he had been an acceptably religious child, attending church with his parents and obeying most – if not all – of the Biblical lessons. As he grew older and discovered his passion for medicine, nothing changed. He never came to think that a belief in medical science and a belief in God were incompatible. It seemed obvious to him that God worked through surgeons as well as priests, aiding them in their acquisition of anatomical knowledge and the skills of healing.

His faith was tested on Afghanistan, though, tested by the pain and the suffering and the death that he saw there, but not once did it come close to breaking. Not even when he himself had been shot and came close to death did he doubt that that Heaven was waiting before him if he should die.

But he did not die, thanks to the brave orderly Murray, the strong legs and back of a pack horse, and – he was sure – the will of God. And he thanked Him many, many times.

But something changed, something fundamental within him, and it happened at the moment that he first met Sherlock Holmes.

He knew that the feelings he held for the great detective were sinful, that they were against God, but he could not fight them away: not with science, not with prayer, not even with his engagement to Mary. And when he discovered that those feelings were reciprocated, that the object of his desire desired him in turn, wild horses could not have dragged him from Holmes's bed.

Sherlock Holmes had done what nothing else could do: he had cast out Watson's religious beliefs. For how could he believe in a God that called such a delight a sin?

Yet late at night, when he was lying awake in bed with Holmes, the sleeping detective's tousled head resting on his chest, he could not help but thank God for the greatest gift that He could give: the gift of love.


End file.
